


i broke what you gave me

by livepoultryfreshkilled



Series: honey, if this plane goes down, i don't even want a parachute [5]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: (that was a joke), BPD Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Brief Description of Physical Abuse, DIDNT KNOW ABOUT THAT TAG!, F/M, God - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internal Monologue, Post-Canon, Short Hair Shiv Roy, Tom is a Sweetheart, dare i tag this catgirl shiv roy. i darent, oh shiv what the hell and fuck is wrong with you, shes having a panic attack and tom is just like. hey sugar muffin are you ok, shiv when she is in emotional distress: i will break a mug, this was written as a JOKE and now its so fucking SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:41:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26074330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livepoultryfreshkilled/pseuds/livepoultryfreshkilled
Summary: and i'm sorry for taking / but i keep wanting more, more, more
Relationships: Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans
Series: honey, if this plane goes down, i don't even want a parachute [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842073
Comments: 14
Kudos: 24





	i broke what you gave me

**Author's Note:**

> written in a fugue state at 8:01 PM on a sunday

Shiv feels like she always has to be doing something wrong. Especially if everything is going so, so right.

“Honeybear, are you ready to go?” Tom is leaning against the counter, frowning at his phone. His jacket is already on. The car keys are swinging from his finger. 

Despite the fact that they both had a personal chauffeur, it was an unspoken agreement that Tom would drive Shiv to her therapist appointment every Thursday. It’s a very nice thing for him to do, to take the time out of his day just for her. He doesn’t have to. He’s doing it purely out of the kindness of his heart, the sick fuck.

He looks up. “Lovebug?” 

If they don’t leave soon, she’s going to be late. 

Shiv is not wearing her jacket. Shiv is not wearing her shoes. Shiv has tilted her body at an angle, stiff as a board against the kitchen island, leaning on her forearms. Her face is blank except for the smallest furrow in her eyebrows. Her fists are clenched so tight that her nails are digging into her palms, but he can’t see that.

“Honey, are you okay?” 

They talked about this. They are always talking about this, about that, about everything. About how she doesn’t talk to him, about what she says when she does. She is a mean woman. She is a bitch. She is a coward. Tom is looking at her with all the love in the world in his eyes, because he doesn’t know any better. He really should by now.

She can’t move from here, can’t leave, she doesn’t even know why. This is her last-ditch effort to ruin her life. She can’t breathe fresh air anymore. She can’t drink clean water. She has to cut the brakes on this daydream they’re sharing before it careens into the side of a building.

Tom frowns. The ceiling fan hums. No one blinks. 

“I’m not going.”

“What?”  _ He’s not even angry. _

“I’m not going today. I’m not going anymore.” 

She doesn’t mean it, but it comes out anyways. Shiv thinks she might be addicted to saying things she doesn’t mean. 

“Shiv—”

“You can’t make me.” 

She sounds like a child. She feels like a child. She  _ is _ a child. She has never grown up, her rotting brain just stagnated as her body shot up around her, closing her in. She  _ will _ never grow up, so it is pointless to try. It will only end in fatal embarrassment, so it’s actually her moral obligation to euthanize this fruitless endeavor. 

Shiv looks Tom dead in the eyes, challenging him. She dares him to step up to the mat and test his manhood against hers.

Tom sets his phone down on the counter, deepens his frown, softens his voice. His eyebrows draw together in concern.  _ He’s not fighting. He’s not playing. He doesn’t even know about the fucking game. _

“Shiv, what’s this about? Did something happen?”

“No.”

She watches Tom try to understand. Wait, he just fucking  _ believes _ her? She’s almost angry. What if something  _ did _ happen, would he not press the issue, just let her lie to his face? What kind of fucking moron trusts Siobhan Roy?

Well, in his defense, she  _ is _ telling the truth: nothing happened. There is no excuse she has to act this way. This is all her own fault, her veins tangling up her own body. She has the key to her own door, she just won’t use it. She doesn’t know what could be outside.

And, really, nothing happened. Last week’s appointment was fine, it was normal. She made some progress. Shiv is always  _ making some progress. _

“Then why don’t you want to go?” 

Shiv doesn’t respond. He is worried and she is emotionless, so she’s ahead of him. Why would she give that up? It feels so good to win this fight; it feels so bad to beat him. Sweet bile is rising in her throat, but she can’t swallow it down. She cannot move.  _ She _ is the predator and  _ he _ is the prey, not the other way around. Please, please, not the other way around.

There is a mug of coffee on the counter. Tom would say it was half-full, and Shiv would say it was half-empty; not because she truly believes in a cynical world, but because she is contractually obligated to contradict him. She owes it to her father and mother, owes them everything she has, where she is today. She owes them every inch of pain she inflicts in her life. 

Shiv looks at the mug, and Tom follows her gaze. They look up at the same time. Then, without breaking eye contact, Shiv pushes it with her arm, just a little. Nudging it a centimeter closer to the edge.

“Shiv?” 

Tom still hasn’t gotten it yet. He’s stupid, he’s slow, and she’s fast; so fast that the wind rips her hair out and burns her skin off and leaves her a bloody pile of charred muscle and gristle and bone at the crash site. And Tom’s so fucking slow. 

_ Slow and steady wins the race. _ She moves it further.

“Siobhan, what are you doing?” 

His voice still has traces of affection, as it always does. It’s going to take so many years for her to stomp them out. But she has to. 

She knows that it hurts, what she’s doing, but it’s good for him, it’s medicine, like a mother’s firm slap across the face of her child (at her tenth birthday party, in front of all her classmates and  _ their _ mothers, too) when she needs it. 

_ This is for your own good, Siobhan. You have to learn… _ Shiv can’t hear anymore, can’t remember.  _ What? What is it? What do I have to learn, mom?  _ But the voice garbles and overlaps and she can’t make out the words. 

Her face stings. The ceiling fan whirs. Shiv pushes the glass a little more, until the rim of the bottom is kissing the sharp edge of the marble slab countertop. 

He still doesn’t fucking get it.

“Oh my god.”  _ There we go.  _

But when she looks at Tom’s scared eyes, big and trusting, she knows that she’s wrong. This isn’t good for him, this isn’t healthy. But it’s not selfish, either. Shiv isn't doing this because she wants to. 

She is doing this because she is afraid. 

She is afraid of her mother, her father, anyone in her family finding out that she admitted how weak she is. She is afraid of herself, of what will happen if she loosens the vice grip on her own throat. And she is afraid of Tom, because she always needs so much from him, so badly, and because he keeps giving it to her. 

“Siobhan,  _ no.” _ His voice is level and stern. He is in the right.  _ He _ is giving her medicine. But he won’t force her mouth open, won’t make her swallow it.

Tom wants to do something good for her, he wants to take her to therapy. Walking into that room makes her face burn and her eyes ache, but he knows (they both know) it will feel better afterwards. It always feels better afterwards, even if telling the truth like that makes her itch. And she knows it will help her change. But there is a threat looming over that change: it would be worse for him to grow to hate this facade of a woman she has always carried on her back than the terrifyingly possible alternative: that there isn’t any gold in them hills.  That after you take away all of Shiv’s pain and anger and vindictiveness and pretty little crocodile tears, there’s nothing left. That Shiv isn’t  _ worth _ saving, that she’s only beautiful when she’s in pain. That Tom will realize that. That he’ll leave one day, to go and find a girl that pays off. 

She pushes the mug again.

“Shiv, please, don’t,” Tom is pleading with her now. _How obscene. How wanton. He should be ashamed of himself._

If he wanted to, Tom could grab the mug. He could pull it away from her, grab her by the back of the neck, make her look into his eyes and teach her a lesson. But that’s not what he’s asking. He doesn’t want to have to put sharp objects on high shelves, he wants her to use self control. He wants her to choose not to break things, things they both own, things they both share, like mugs or trust or bodies. But the house is empty, Tom, don’t you know? The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

Another push. She will not look away from Tom’s face. She wants to see the fear in his eyes. She wants to watch herself die, watch the murder scene reflect in his pupils.

_ “Siobhan.” _

She can taste blood in her mouth. 

He is talking to her, softly, like she’s a wild animal he’s trying to calm down. She wants to seem rabid, a mad dog to run from, but she’s not. She’s just sick. But she won’t let him tend to her wounds. She will sit here in her own bear trap and gnaw her leg off; she will refuse to be domesticated, even if it means she starves to death. 

She pushes it more, further and further.  _ How far is too far, Tom? When will you learn that gravity won’t stop just because you love her? _

“Please.”

Shiv doesn’t trust her husband. Shiv doesn’t trust herself. So she will knock the mug off the table, throw the picture frame at the wall, cheat on him and lie to him and steal everything that isn’t nailed down, because Shiv has only ever felt alive when there is blood on her hands. Because she is a pussy, afraid of the shadows in her bed and ashamed of a kiss on the cheek.  Shiv may be degraded without her anger, weak and bland, but she is nothing, nothing,  _ nothing, _ without her fear. 

Another nudge, more pressure; it’s halfway off the counter now. When it falls, it will break. These are the final moments of its life. But before Shiv can move it any more, the mug topples to the ground and explodes spectacularly, the sound hitting her like a kick to the chest.

_ “Siobhan!” _

Shiv jumps. She knew it was going to happen, she  _ made _ it happen, and she’s still caught off guard. In her defense, a slap still hurts if you see it coming. In her defense, she never claimed she wanted this.

They both stare at the mug, broken on the ground. It can never be put back together. 

_ This is why we can’t have nice things. _

Shiv’s ears are ringing and her vision is blurred at the edges, she can only focus on the cream-colored ceramic shards scattered across the linoleum. Her eyes are burning. She can’t take it anymore: the fear, the pain, the shame, the weight of the dirt she piles on top of it. Shiv can only clap a hand over her mouth in hopes to muffle the sob she lets out. She feels Tom’s arms circle around her. Her eyes are squeezed shut, she barely knows where she is, but she knows that they belong to him. She surrenders, her knees buckling as she falls limp, her whole body held up only by Tom Wambsgans. Her husband. Her best friend. Her lover. Her _ victim. _

Shiv presses a second hand over her mouth and feels a scream rip through her. Hot tears are running down her face, she is crying,  _ wailing, _ so hard it hurts, and she is mourning for everything she sees. For the little girl she never was, for the mother she never had, for the father she never loved, for the woman she berated and abused her whole life. She mourns for Tom, her darling. She mourns for the mug.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, what’s wrong, angel, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Tom has pulled her to his chest, his arms are tight, he won’t let her fall to the ground. His voice is thick with emotion, concern, adoration.  _ Blind _ adoration. He is so kind. A sob wracks through her again at the thought of it. “I’m here, Shiv, honey, I’ve got you.”  _ He’s got her. _

Shiv can’t speak, she can’t explain that she’s so sorry, that she loves him more than she has ever and will ever love anything, that she  _ needs _ him, she always has and always will. She can’t tell him that he’s the apple of  _ her _ eye, her sun and her moon, too. She can’t call him honey butter biscuit, she can’t lavish affection like him, but she wants to. She  _ wants _ to. She can’t cry like a normal person, only when she is angry, when she is in physical pain, when she  _ earns _ it. So when that suppressed melancholia does come out, it tears out her organs, leaving deep scratches in the meat of her throat and stomach. Catharsis is not graceful or beautiful. Shiv loses her false elegance and bears her carnage to everyone who is unfortunate enough to witness it. It’s bloody and it’s visceral, and it is too, too real. 

She buries her face in Tom’s chest. Her sadness is so boxed up that it becomes resentful, graphic, and when it frees itself the massacre in its wake is something no man should see. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay, I’ve got you, shh, shh, everything’s okay,” he soothes. His voice fades in and out. She moans at the thought of cleaning Tom’s blood and hair out of the bumper of her car. Shiv can barely breathe, waterboarding herself with his tear-soaked tie.

Shiv knows she is breaking the rules, but is aching too hard to be ashamed of feeling. It hurts, everything hurts, she is being stabbed and shot and kissed and hugged all at the same time. She feels like she’s going to throw up. She feels like she’s going to pass out. She feels like she’s going to die.

And she can’t calm down, won’t, doesn’t know how; Tom still won’t let go of her. He would wait here and hold her until his arms fell off, she realizes. And that’s so unbearable, to be forgiven for her violence, to be forgiven for everything. She cannot understand why he won’t punish her. She cannot rest until he does, the anticipation keeping her awake every night. She supposes, then, that she will never rest. The thought soothes her, inexplicably.

Tom rubs her back and mumbles comforting things into her hair. It’s still short, but it’s grown out significantly. Past her ears, halfway down her neck. She hates it, it’s uneven and frames her face poorly. She knows it’s superficial, it doesn’t matter, but if Shiv isn’t pretty then she’s not real. (It’s all in the face, you know.)

Tom lets her cry for as long as she can. Until she wrings out the last drop of herself onto his body. He doesn’t know why she’s done this, why she’s crying, Tom doesn’t know what the hell is wrong with her, but he still does everything he can to make her feel better. Poor Tom. Poor Sisyphus. Poor Prometheus. (Shiv doesn’t know if she is the eagle or the liver. Shiv doesn’t know if she is the boulder or the hill.)

Oh, the warmth of embrace. Oh, the smell and feel and heat of being held up, closed in upon, of the soft silence punctuated only by the hum of the fan and Tom’s murmured litany of love. Oh, the intimacy of forgiveness, of misunderstanding, of patience, of  _ limitations; _ truly, Shiv muses, nothing can compare to a hug. Oh, the love of it all, the friendship. The melting ice caps, the Titanic, the Hindenburg; no tragedy can mar Shiv’s safety in her lover’s arms.  _ Oh, the humanity! _

Shiv can barely stand, so Tom carries her to the bed. We are married, we are in love, we are in a home with doors that only lock from the inside, he promises her. We will get through this, he declares with a feather-light kiss on her temple. We will get better. Shiv can’t believe him, and she can’t help wanting to. 

Shiv can’t let go of his shirt. She grips it so tight that she can hear the fabric tear. If you put sand in Shiv’s hands, it will slip through, but not without a fight. She will clench her fists tight enough to save at least a few grains.

But Tom is not sand. Tom is not her mother. Tom is not Shiv. Tom is a man who loves her on purpose, because he is strong enough and smart enough to leave if he didn’t. Tom is someone who is trying his best to help her. She owes it to him to try, too. She owes him every strand of softness she can sew into her life.

Shiv falls asleep at 3 PM on a Thursday, fully clothed in the arms of the man she loves. He wakes her up at 6 PM to eat dinner. He does not let go of her hand. He does not ask her what happened, why she destroyed something of theirs, why she broke down sobbing in his arms. Why she wouldn’t go to therapy. He waits for her to tell him.

Tom lies down with her on the bed, wipes the blood and viscera off her face, kisses her so slowly, so gently that it makes her let out a pathetic whimper. To be cared for is an alien, foreboding thing, it’s awful, it makes her breath uneven and hair stand on end. Tom has never understood this, which must be why he tortures her so. 

Their eyes are closed and their foreheads are resting together. Tom is stroking her back absentmindedly. It’s unbelievably soothing.

He huffs out a weak laugh. “Can we agree that you’ll see Dr. Jímenez next week?”

Shiv’s laugh surprises her. “Yeah,” she cringes at how wrecked and watery her voice is, “that’s fair.” 

A beat. “I’m sorry,” she offers. Sorry for breaking, for taking, for needing. For all of it, really. She keeps that part to herself, though.

His hand stutters. He pauses thoughtfully, like he’s considering how to properly handle Shiv’s ticking time bomb of a heart without it going off. “I know, sugar. I forgive you.” He kisses her head. He doesn’t say “it’s okay,” because it wasn’t and she knows that. But he’s okay. They both are, at least for now. 

Shiv doesn’t trust herself, but maybe she can learn to. Maybe the consequence of her healing isn’t that he’ll stop loving her, maybe it’s even worse: that he won’t. That he’ll love her forever, through all the change and growing pains. Maybe she’ll learn how to take that love, how to give it back. Maybe they’ll get a new mug. Maybe everything will go right, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll let it.

**Author's Note:**

> @bassbattle on tumblr/@bassbattie on twt! hmu to join the ever-growing tomshiv nation. if you leave comments and kudos then im in love with you


End file.
